Chapter 12
The dark form of Roosevelt Island swept along to the right of the station wagon, giving way to the sight of the city, leaning into the Potomac like a frozen, glistening ooze of civilization.
Across from the Parkway, on the other side of Key Bridge, Georgetown blazed with nightlife. Woodrow Justine could imagine the college students clogging its cobblestone streets, navigating boozy paths from bar to bar, past the quaint shops, with rock and jazz music squeezing out into a spring-soft night. Washington, D.C., drinking age was eighteen, a full three years below that of nearby Virginia and Maryland. The Georgetown drinking establishments—open to the unbelievable hours of three A.M. in the patrician capital—attracted them like magnets. Justine liked Georgetown, he liked rubbing shoulders with young people, making conversation, and was forever startled and thrilled over how naïve and stupid and inferior these biological sausages of the privileged classes were. It was a hobby of his to imagine how easy it would be to simply take Joe College, in his penny loafers and smart pleated pants, or Jane Sophomore, in her mascaraed face and Guess Who distressed-denim jeans, out into the alley and waste them. He never did, of course. Justine was much too professional for that. He got his share of even-ups in the course of duty. Still, he did enjoy imagining what it would be like.
No time for Georgetown tonight, though. His grey Chevrolet rolled under the bridge and up on George Washington Parkway. Justine admired the view across the river of Georgetown University’s lighted spires. He supposed he could have driven up 295, past the Tidal Basin, and on up the Baltimore Washington Parkway. But this way, if not more direct, was at least more relaxing.
He turned onto Route 495—the Washington Beltway, after a pleasant ten-mile cruise overlooking the Potomac, then took that four-lane highway across the American Legion Bridge into Maryland. At eleven o’clock, traffic was light for a pleasant spring Saturday night. Justine slipped past Glen Echo and Bethesda and Kensington easily, gearing his mind up for what lay ahead. Beside him was a nondescript tan suitcase. He’d checked it before he’d left National. It held, of all things, a pretty clunky .38 Special, along with one of the new silencers that didn’t mark the bullet. Justine much preferred better handguns—he wished he had his Walther PPK or Beretta automatic with him, two prized members of an extensive gun collection. But this was consistent with the impression that the Editors wanted to make—a death wiped of professional fingerprints. Also in the pack was his usual bag of tricks—certain instruments that would do a Nazi Death Camp commandant proud. There was also a map of Montgomery County, with Klinghoffer’s road explicitly marked. This lay on top of the suitcase, and the secret government operative examined it as he approached the signs for the Georgia Avenue exits.
He took the south exit. It took him another twelve minutes of lights and stop signs to get to the heart of Takoma Park. On the map, the town looked like a large wart on the Northeast side of the tilted square that was D.C. In the flesh, it seemed a gentle and old suburb, filled with ancient houses, more than slightly frayed at the ages, but not subject to the kind of decay brought by poor inhabitants who had recently moved in. No, Takoma Park had an old, 1920’s-neighborhood-gone-slightly-to-seed feel. One of the things that always impressed Justine about the Washington, D.C., area was the number of trees—big trees, small trees, oceans and seas and rivers of trees, streaming beside buildings. Takoma Park seemed particularly wealthy with thick oak and poplar, and their spring leaves crowned them now, creating almost a canopy over the neighborhood in places.
Klinghoffer’s house was on Greenbriar Road, quite near to where Piney Branch Road intersected with Flower Avenue (even the goddamn streets were named after plants! thought Justine), and Justine found it with no difficulty. It was a single-family unit—old and faintly dilapidated from the evidence provided by a pass-by—and fortunately not very close to its neighbors. The lights burning in the living room and basement reassured him. The mark was indeed home. Just as Richards had promised.
Justine turned a corner, and parked on a side street down the block. He pocketed his weapon and his bag of tricks, and then he looked at the grainy photo of Klinghoffer one more time under the illumination of the dashboard light. Underneath was printed the words, MARYLAND DEPT OF VEHICLES, 1986. The picture showed a man with dull, faintly bulging eyes, who was losing his dark, limp hair. He was not smiling. His cheeks were slightly puffy. Guy was overweight, thought Justine. Out of shape. Simpler and simpler. Still, that leap over the balcony edge showed some agility and power. Best to be cautious at the very least.
Locking the car door behind him, Justine pocketed the keys and proceeded to walk toward 1345 Greenbriar, checking the neighborhood. All the houses were old, though a few looked as though they’d been refurbished somewhat. A few lights were on, and from one of the houses the sound of Mozart sweetened the air. No parties, no activity—good. A quiet neighborhood. It would be even quieter much later that night, when Justine was finished.
The Klinghoffer residence itself was old, and the grass and hedges that surrounded it were in want of trimming. It was not a big house, but a large open porch gave that impression. As he approached it, Justine could see that the dull green paint was coming off in strips, revealing an even duller grey undercoat—and sometimes just brown, rotting wood. Even past the sweet scent of honeysuckle from the underbrush that surrounded this house, Justine’s faculties sensed a sourness, an offness. His hackles rose as he stepped up onto the porch, past an old swing whose left chain had broken and lay rusting on the chipped floorboards. There was a distinct wrongness here.
It gave Justine the willies. This was not a sensation he was used to.
He stuck his hand inside his pocket to seek the comfort of a gun in his hand. The grey steel was cold and solid, and made him feel much more confident as soon as he touched it.
A definite moldy effluvia hovered over the porch, an earthy, fungoid smell, touched with the perfume of the hyacinth bushes nearby. A shiver touching his spine, Justine made a complete circuit of the house, padding silently in the overgrown grasses. Brick foundation, wood frame. A bit of shingle fallen from the tattered roof crunched under his shoe. Basement windows peered up from rusted wells, and light leaked through, but he could not see anything for the dirt and dust that smudged them. Around the back, a dilapidated swing set grew from the ground like a metallic tree, next to a clothesline with clips hooked to nothing but air. Justine checked the back door. Locked. Easy enough to break in, if necessary. He could hear nothing from inside the house—but he sensed that someone was home. He walked around the north side of the house, observing that the windows there were just as heavily curtained as all the first-floor windows were.
Getting the door open would be easy enough. A knock, a flash of an official badge, a request for a few questions ... but all that depended on the door getting answered. He stepped onto the porch, and the wood groaned beneath his weight. Rotted. Justine just hoped he didn’t fall through. Whew—that fungus smell again. Suddenly, he just wanted to get this business over with.
There was a storm door, but the front window was gone. He could see no sign of a doorbell. Justine braced himself and knocked four times on the wooden door. The knocks echoed hollowly beyond, but there was no answer. Justine knocked again, with the same result.
He reached down and tried the old doorknob.
It turned easily in his grip, and he pushed open the door with a faint wheeze.
“Hello?” he said. “Mr. Klinghoffer?” He thought better of announcing the presence of government authority. That ploy might have worked at the door, but there was the possibility the man might be holed up here, just waiting to plug the first cop to walk in. However, the living room showed no evidence of preparation for a standoff. And no one answered him, either.
Justine’s nose twitched at the rank stench of sour garbage. A faint light from the dining area illuminated a living room piled high with stacks of newspapers and Hefty bags filled with trash, some cinched at the top, some not. In one corner, by the grate of a hearth was an old RCA black-and-white television.
Keeping his gun gripped in his pocket out of sight, Justine skirted the piles of trash and walked into the dining room. “Mr. Klinghoffer?” he called softly.
More stacks of newspapers lined one of the dining-room walls, all the way to the ceiling. The other wall was solid bookcases, crammed with musty old books and magazines. In the center of the room was a table covered by a filthy tablecloth. On the table were rows and rows of Fruit Loops cereal, some open and empty, some still sealed. A carton of milk sat in front of a half-filled bowl of cereal dotted with color. The whole room smelled of milk gone bad.
“Jesus,” whispered Justine to himself.
To one side of the cereal boxes were a spill of books and magazines and tabloids. Justine examined them. National Enquirer. Star. World Weekly News and National Intruder all were there, opened, and violated; stories had been clipped from the pages. Also there were copies of Omni, opened to the red “Anti-Matter” sections, as well as science magazines, the Washington Post, and other national newspapers. All had been worked over with scissors. The stacks of books were all UFO-oriented, many written by Dr. Stanton Friedman, and most had the sloppy look of primitive self-publishing. There was one whole pile devoted to Fate and UFO and California UFO magazines. Next to it was a stack of old and yellowing Flying Saucer magazines from the fifties.
Justine walked over to look at the bookshelf. More UFO books, but a great deal of science fiction as well, from Piers Anthony to Roger Zelazny, but not alphabetized. As he stepped away, he trod on a pile of paper, and he looked down to see the remains of a book. Scarborough’s new book, Above Us Only Sky, ripped apart with a knife or razor blade. Amused, Justine picked it up and immediately dropped it as soon as the smell hit him—the destroyed book had been smeared with excrement.
“A critic,” whispered Justine. “Definitely a critic.”
Question was, where was the critic? Basement? Attic? Put him away, Woody, he told himself. Put him down quick, and get the hell outta here.
The kitchen was a smelly jumble, a repeat of the dining room, with a greater variety of food and food stains. A great mound of rotting matter lay in the sink, making Justine ill at the sight and smell. God, it was worse than when he was a kid. Much worse. Oh, jeez, bury this guy.
Justine decided to check the upstairs first. Only if he had to, would he deal with what might lie in the subterranean part of this sewer. He eased into the hallway, intending to go back through the cluttered living room and then up the scuffed and tatty stairway, senses alert, when suddenly the cellar door flew open. The big door banged against the wall, and a man jumped up from the gloom below, screaming at the top of his lungs and holding the sides of his head as though they threatened to explode.
“Arwhhhhhhhhhh!” screeched the man, bashing into the wall. “Arwhieeeeeeeee!” he cried, slipping first to his knees and then slipping to the floor in a paroxysm of agony.
Startled, Justine stepped back two paces, pulling out his gun. If instinct had had its way, that gun would have fired, but the assassin’s iron will and years of training held his own panic in check, and allowed him a split second of detached observation before a decision was made.
From the picture, Justine recognized the man who lay on the floor as Arnold Klinghoffer. His knees were tucked up into his chest in almost a fetal position. Spasms wracked his body. He smelled of old and new sweat, and his limp hair was pasted down by a patina of moisture. Around his head was an oddly constructed helmet, apparently made of aluminum foil and coat hangers. Two bent wires stretched out, wobbling, like the antenna of some demented insect.
Justine put his gun back in his pocket. It was a shame he couldn’t just waste the crazy now, but Richards had specifically requested an interrogation. He put his pack down against the wall, and leaned over the still-shuddering man, still on guard. He reached into the specially constructed pocket on the side of his pants and thumbed on the tiny recorder.
“Arnold Klinghoffer,” he said, touching the man’s shoulder.
The man abruptly swung his head around, so quickly that his amateurish helmet fell off. The effect was immediate; Arnold Klinghoffer blinked at his visitor outlined in the light from the dining room, and opened his mouth like a beached and gasping fish. “Anteres ... message from Anteres ... We will cure cancer ... We will cure AIDS. Help from the stars. The Friends of the Universe have landed! Make ready for the Pleiadans! Jesus shall return in a flying saucer!”
“I’m a friend,” said Justine, softly. “I’m here to help you.” The eyes—bulging, hyperthyroid—shifted their focus from infinity to Woodrow Justine. They seemed startled for only a moment, and then ... accepting. “Yes,” said the man. “You. You’ve come. They said you’d come tonight. Tonight. I was talking to them! The helmet worked again. Only once in a while does the solarnarium-crystoid nexus catch their broadcasts.” He turned his head toward the mangled helmet. The aluminum foil crinkled as he picked it up and looked at it as though it were the Holy Grail. “I have their message, and will act!”
Klinghoffer was dressed in black chinos and a dirty white tank-top undershirt. He wore no shoes, and his black socks were filled with holes, so that many long-nailed toes stuck out.
“Mr. Klinghoffer, I hope you’ll help me,” said Justine, choosing a gentle tack for now. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve been sent—” He decided on a different, wilder story. “—by the Pleiadans you mentioned. They’re very puzzled. They want to know, was it the people from Anteres that told you to shoot at Everett Scarborough?”
At the name, “Scarborough” the already-buggy eyes almost seemed to pop all the way out. “Enemy!” he whispered harshly. “Liar! Danger!” He floundered his way to a kneeling position. “Must stop him!”
“Who told you to shoot him, Arnold?”
Klinghoffer lifted himself to his feet and regarded the man curiously. “You don’t know? Then you’re not from the Pleiadans! You’re from the Moon People!”
“Oops. Sorry, pal. I get them confused all the time,” said Justine.
Klinghoffer nodded with great gravity. “The Moon People said they would send you tonight ... send you to receive the solarnarium device I constructed that their ship needs to fly. But you’re human ... I did not expect a human.”
“I’m their friend.”
“Yes, they do have human friends.” Klinghoffer looked around nervously. “No one followed you, did they?”
“No, I’m alone.”
“Good. I have taken off most of the week to finish this work for your friends,” said the man with the utmost seriousness. Suddenly, Klinghoffer leaned closer, scrutinizing his new visitor in more detail. “But how is it that you know of the incident with the infidel Scarborough?”
“My ... er ... Moon People pals gave me the scoop. Yeah. And like I say, they were real puzzled why you did it.”
Klinghoffer suddenly gave a phlegmy cough, and Justine caught a blast of halitosis that made him cringe. But he did not move. “Inspiration, my friend. Pure inspiration. Before the lecture, I felt the Call, and I put on my two-way wrist radio. The Consortium told me that I should take my gun to the lecture, and that I should sit on the first balcony row—the loge, actually. Yes, the loge!”
The Consortium? What the fuck! Justine hoped that the miniature tape player was getting all this down!
“Did this Consortium tell you to kill Scarborough?”
“No. I was—upset. I lost ... control. I haven’t been well. Ever since my mother died two years ago, things have not been good.” He gestured to a portrait of a fleshy elderly woman gazing down with that eternal maternal frown of disapproval at the mess in the living room. “But my work here ... it sustains me.”
“Ah yes, the Consortium,” said Justine. “Would you tell me some more about them? The Moon People were so sketchy. And I’d love to see this two-way wrist radio of yours.”
“Later. First, I want to give you the solarnarium device I constructed.” Klinghoffer gestured for him to follow downstairs.
Justine was faintly disappointed as they moved into the cool humid shadows of the basement. The rube was freely dispensing with his information—no bag-of-tricks incentives were necessary. Just as well, though. The sooner he could get out of this creepy place, the better.
The basement, if anything, was worse than upstairs, even though no garbage was strewn about. It was a finished basement, with carpeting over the cement, and tile in the washing-machine-and-dryer area. The place was one large room. with the furnace squatting in the comer like a hulking metal beast hiding in a plywood cave. Justine noticed overhead fluorescent lights in a paneled ceiling, but none were on. Instead, what little illumination there was came from naked 40-watt bulbs, glowing softly in various parts of the room.
One part of the basement seemed to have once been an entertainment center. An old couch and some chairs surrounded a stereo-and-color- TV hybrid. This area was now populated by naked store-window mannequins and several inflatable female sex-dolls, mouths open in permanent O’s of gratification. These figures sat and lay in bizarre and contorted combinations—perhaps a very alien concept of an orgy. Beside the TV-stereo was a VCR, about which lay several porno films; and on a coffee table were several mason jars, covered by Saran wrap fastened by rubber bands. The jars were filled to various levels with a milky substance. Two had gone green with decomposition. The smell as Justine walked past was indescribable. He held his hand up to his mouth and stared at the jars.
Klinghoffer, noticing, sidled up to him and nodded down at the jars. “Yes. I am a fruitful contributor. Star seed!” He looked up with awe toward the ceiling stretching out his arms toward the universe. “My children populate the galaxies now.” He looked back down and shook his head. “I’m due for a pick-up.” He looked at Justine with sudden comprehension and smiled showing a set of rotting teeth. “You! You bring them back with you to the Moon People. And they can distribute—“
“No!” said Justine, his stomach turning as he looked away. “I mean, the device. That’s all I can carry.”
Klinghoffer shrugged. “Okay. It’s over here, on the workbench. I just put the finishing touches on it.”
The man beckoned and Justine followed.
The workbench was the featured spot of the larger work area, which took up most of the basement. On the walls stretched a full complement of tools, from hammers and chisels to screwdrivers and awls. A number of drawers apparently held electrical components. A power-saw sat to one side, along with a number of hand-held saws.
On the edges of the area were bulletin boards. Tacked on these were clippings from newspapers and magazines—principally dealing with UFO phenomena and other paranormal occurrences. A huge blackboard hung nearby, filled with odd equations and even odder diagrams. Scattered on the floor were various half-completed projects, trailing wire, topped with transistors and vacuum tubes. Justine did not have the vaguest idea what they were supposed to be. They looked like the guts of the mutated children of robots—but on closer look, they were just pieces of everyday appliances stuck and soldered together at random. There was the smell of burnt insulation and solder in the air, along with something old and rotting.
The centerpiece of the workbench was a larger version of the oddities strewn on the floor. It looked like the picture tube of an old Zenith TV set, with transistors and resistors, circuit breakers and wire soldered on its base willy-nilly, and then covered with ropes of crumpled-up aluminum foil.
“This is it!” said Klinghoffer, a fevered, distant look clouding his eye. “This is the device the creatures from Anteres instructed me to make for their ship.”
“Um ... what’s it supposed to do?” Best to keep the weirdo talking—God knew what might flow out in the way of information along with the verbiage.
“I believe it’s a part of their star drive. It ionizes the exhaust and converts it to reusable fuel. The key,” he said, tapping the aluminum foil, “is the solarnarium. You have to convolute it just so to obtain proper magnetic harmonics. Solarnarium is the key element to my communications helmets. It creates a harmonic field that will pick up messages from their saucers.” He petted the device lovingly. “You will be careful with it, won’t you?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, and the Moon People ... well, they’re real good with this kind of mechanical stuff.”
Klinghoffer nodded, staring at the useless contraption, falling into a deep meditative silence.
“So tell me—these solarnarium helmets ... are these how you communicate with the Consortium?” asked Justine.
The effect was immediate and swift. Klinghoffer swung on him, eyes bugged and forehead creases deep. “Of course not, you idiot! The two-way wrist radio! I use the two-way wrist radio for the Consortium.” A speckle of drool drifted down from his lips. He ground his teeth.
“Sorry,” said Justine. “Yeah, you did mention you were going to show it to me. But tell me, Arnold. The Moon People contacted me just last year, and I don’t know much about the extraterrestrial side of life. How did you get involved? And how did you meet this Consortium?”
A dry cough escaped the man’s mouth. Another. Justine suddenly realized Klinghoffer was laughing. “Since I was a little boy, I’ve always known that there were people up in the stars ... And then the Consortium came to me, and they said, ‘Yes, you’re right, Arnold. Learn about them. Study them. Perhaps one day you too can join our number.’
“And so, I study them. I know all about the Star People. There are many different races you know—some good, and some evil. I, Arnold Klinghoffer, only help the good ones, like
the Anterans and the Pleiadans and the Moon People and the Golden Ones. And one day soon they will reveal themselves to the rest of the world and sail down in the ships of silver, and bring down the Lord and Jesus Christ and all the good dead people like my mother. And there will be a time of joy and celebration upon the earth.” Klinghoffer made a fist and dug long fingernails into the palm of his hand. “But first, the Bad Ones must be overcome.”
“Yes, absolutely, Arnold. But the Consortium. How do I get in touch with the Consortium? Do I use the two-way wrist radio?” This Consortium could be a group of similarly bent weirdos that the Editors should definitely know about.
“Why do you want to know about the Consortium?” asked Klinghoffer,
“Well, I only know the Moon People. I want to help the whole cause!”
Klinghoffer studied the man for a moment, squinting. Justine felt as though he were some paramecium being scrutinized underneath a microscope. This fucker was really off the edge! I may be borderline psychotic, thought Justine. But I’m not crazy.
Finally, after a long silence, Klinghoffer licked his lips and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I will tell you about the Consortium. You need to know. But first, tell me your name.”
“Samuels,” said Justine, using one of his several aliases. “Peter Samuels.”
The bug-eyed man nodded as though he had suspected just such a name. “Excellent. It all makes sense. Have you ever noticed how things flow together? Coincidences? Synchronicity? The Golden Ones—they have told me that this is part of the inner mechanism of reality. And this is where the Consortium enters the picture, Peter Samuels.” Klinghoffer turned away and walked to a set of battered metal file cabinets. He rolled open a drawer.
“Is this Consortium affiliated with a government?” Justine asked.
“All governments ... and none! Their agents work in all the countries of the world! Peter Samuels, did you know that they want me to join their number? I work toward that goal, but it is hard. Very hard. The sacrifices! The mental energy! Astonishing!” He shook his head wearily, and then lifted something from the drawer, and carried it over to his guest. “But you wished to see the radio. Here it is.”
Justine took the device, and Klinghoffer turned back to the filing cabinet, starting to take something else out. It was a large silver band, covered with a zigzag of both naked and insulated wire connecting several cannibalized watch-faces and topped with a tiny speaker and receiver, attached to a nine-volt battery. All this, swathed in that magical material, solarnarium; aluminum foil.
Justine stared at it for a moment, shaking his head. Another bogus device. The guy actually had him going for a while. This Consortium was just another figment of a twisted imagination, just like the Anterans or the Moon People or the Golden Ones. This sucker sure talked organization, but clearly the Arnold Klinghoffer conspiracy numbered exactly one!
Still, he had to make sure. He started to play with the toggles to see if he could tum the thing on.
“Yes! The Consortium! The Men in Black! A worthy aspiration. You, too, would make a good candidate,” said Klinghoffer, turning around.
“Huh?” said Justine.
Suddenly, Klinghoffer was on him, and Justine felt a sharp stinging jab his left bicep. He dropped the two-way wrist radio, stepped back and pushed Klinghoffer away from him. The man’s rank body odor clung to Justine’s nostrils. Horrified, the government agent saw that Klinghoffer was holding a large hypodermic needle in his hand. Its contents had been plunged into his veins.
“Don’t worry, Peter Samuels,” said Klinghoffer. “It doesn’t hurt. You, too, shall be a candidate now! You too can join the Consortium!”
“What did you put in me!” screeched Justine. “You maniac! What did you shoot me up with?”
Klinghoffer gestured to a bottle of clear liquid by the cabinet. “Star stuff! It will clear your mind! It will prepare you for contact with the Consortium. And they will tell you what you must—“
“You fucking loony!” Fury overwhelmed judgment in Justine’s mind. He stepped over and grabbed the chubby man by his neck. “What is that shit? Really!”
“I told you! Star stuff!” gurgled Klinghoffer. “Stop it. You’re hurting me!”
Justine hurled the man toward his workbench. Klinghoffer struck it hard, knocking over the Anteran starship device with a crash, and flopping onto the floor. Justine ran over and kicked him hard in the side. “What was that crap?” he shrilled, holding the still-smarting arm. “What was it?”
Another blow to the head knocked out teeth and brought forth a splash of blood. “You ... you’re not from the Moon People!” cried Klinghoffer. “You’re not my friend. You’re from the Bad Ones!”
“You bet, asshole,” said Justine, watching as the crazy crawled away. “I’m from the big bad fucking United States government. Now tell me, what did you stick in me?!”
Klinghoffer’s eyes were glazed as he grabbed up the fallen two-way wrist radio. A bubble of saliva, blood, and snot grew from a nostril as he fumbled at a switch and began to mumble hoarsely into the receiver, “Help me. Please! Help me!”
Something snapped in Woodrow Justine. He was no longer the cool assassin. The raging berserker, the marine who had charged the beaches of Grenada, took over. He took out his revolver and stepped to a straddling position over the whimpering man. Screaming, he fired point-blank into Arnold Klinghoffer’s head. He emptied his gun, the bullets thunking and splattering blood, skull, and brain matter over the basement floor. When he was finished, Klinghoffer’s face and head were almost sheared from the rest of his body. A vast pool of blood leaked out from the twitching dead man onto the rug.
By the time Justine regained control, the firing pin was clicking against empty cylinders. Justine put the gun back in his pocket, and stepped away from the flowing gore, annoyed to see that it had splattered onto his pants legs. No matter. He was going to have to go to ground anyway. He had to get back to Operations Central immediately, and get checked. He didn’t have the faintest what this nut case had squirted into his arm. Fucking hell ... And it was probably a fucking filthy needle as well.
Quickly, Justine picked the hypo from the limp hand of the dead man, wrapped it in an oily rag. He grabbed the bottle of solution that Klinghoffer had pointed to. The boys in the labs were going to have to analyze this. Fortunately, he could feel no effects from the injection. If it had been some kind of sedative, he’d be at least feeling groggy by now. But all Justine felt was the screech of adrenaline in his system. He wrapped the bottle in another cloth and went back up the stairs to where his black bag waited for him. He stashed the bottle, then took out the cellophane baggies of drugs that had been provided for him to plant. He did not care to go back downstairs, so he simply tossed the stuff onto the dining room table, amongst the stacks of books and magazines.
Woodrow Justine took a deep breath. A strong and long shudder wracked his body.
It took every bit of his willpower, every bit of his training, to keep in control, to keep his mind clear.
These clothes, these gloves—he was going to bum them all. And he was going to take a long, long shower.
With a whispered curse, Woodrow Justine got the hell out of there. It was a very hard thing indeed not to run all the way to where his car was parked.